21 May 2013

Former patients back challenge to smoking ban

1:34 pm on 21 May 2013

Former mental patients say they support a court challenge to a ban on smoking in a number of Auckland hospitals.

Two former psychiatric patients and a retired nurse are challenging the ban in Waitemata District Health Board mental health units. Smoking has been banned on all the DHB's sites since 2009.

Auckland lawyer Richard Francois is acting for the former patients and retired nurse and says the ban is cruel and amounts to torture.

Former mental health patient Sue Purdie was a smoker at the time she was in hospital in the 1990s and says if there had been ban she may have risked suicide rather than seek help.

Norrie Power, a former mental health patient who now co-ordinates two Wellington outpatient rehab centres, says the job of mental health workers is to make people better, not get them to quit smoking.

The DHB will defend its ban when the case resumes on Tuesday.